Daredevil #168 p13 "No matter how much it pains me" - Frank Miller

Frank Miller is my favorite comics author. The stories he created and that I loved are countless, as well as the number of creators he inspired. Love him or hate him, he's the biggest superstar in our favorite medium (with a guy called Stan Lee, ok) and, to me, his work is unparalleled. I can't describe how ecstatic I was when, through an extremely lucky turn of events, I got to share a diner with him. This is a memory I will always cherish, the same way I will never forget the first time I read Ronin or DKR. So it could be surprising that this is only my first Miller page, but it took me quite a few years to find the right one.

It had to be a Daredevil page : it has always been about Miller's DD, my favorite comics run ever. Years of searching means I've passed on a lot of pieces : splashes, action pages, covers, historic scenes, etc. So many spectacular pieces but none that worked for me (except a few exceptions that were impossible to pry from their owners), because I could not find one that fit all my criteria : needs to be written by Miller, fully penciled also, inks by Janson of course, needs DD (or Elektra :), needs text/dialogues, but more importantly than all these, it needed to be a BIG scene, something that mattered in the run.

This page is from the first DD issue Miller wrote himself. The first comics he fully controlled (but not the last!). And what did he do with this first issue ? He started re-creating the entire history of DD by creating his most memorable character, introducing a past we never suspected, and started tormenting our hero in unprecedented ways.

Why that page ? It does fit all my criteria but what really mattered to me is that it shows Miller's Daredevil as I will always remember him : face down in the rain in a deserted alley, hurting like hell, but fighting to get up, and in the end being more resolved than ever, even though raindrops make it looks like he's crying. I love the whole composition and flow of the page and of course the inner dialogue after this first encounter with Elektra is priceless. It introduces her dual personality, her past and her relationship with Matt ("The first woman I ever loved. That's a hard thing to forget"). In the end, we get DD's biggest dilemma : "No matter how much it pains me, I must hunt Elektra down".

If I had to sum up Miller's DD run to a newbie, I would just say "Miller brings noir crime stories to the super hero genre, re-writes DD's history, introduces Elektra, and makes him suffer like never before, only to bring him back stronger than ever". It's only now that I understand why this was the right page for me : it encapsulates everything I love about that run and makes it iconic for me.

I now feel semi-retired from the hobby: maybe I'll never buy another page after this one and, if that's the case, I'm glad that I ended "my run" that way :-)